Daddy impressed me with his super reflexes today. We were having our nightly sing song and dance and I was trying to get a picture for today’s blog. I was trying to get a picture of Darwin smiling when Daddy lent forward, which I thought he was doing to make Darwin laugh. At this point Darwin was, to put it nicely, a little bit sick. Daddy knew it was coming and very cleverly avoided dinner going all over his head and his new shirt. Very impressive indeed.

Today is Darwin’s nine month birthday! Every month just seems to pass more quickly than the last. It’s hard to believe that on a Sunday, nine months today, our precious little (now much bigger) boy came into and rocked our world!

The past month has been a fun one and in terms of what we can see physically; his most developmental. From his crawling to his standing to his repetition of the words ‘Mama’ and ‘Dada’. He’s getting braver every day and is learning to balance whilst standing up with only one hand for support. He now stands and holds on to this wooden frame that he use to lay under and play with hanging toys, we move it with him holding on across the room, it looks a bit like a zimmer frame but it  is helping him learn to walk. Today we were playing with his huge Lego like blocks and for the first time he tried to stack them himself and build something. He’s changing so much every day, who knows what’s in store for us this month but we can’t wait to find out!

Today Darwin and I took a stroll to Chinatown for some yummy dim sum. Our favorite haunt is the Golden Unicorn. The restaurant is set over five floors that look like ballrooms with lavish drapes and chandeliers, it’s filled with 98% Chinese people, there’s little ladies in yellow aprons pushing around the carts with the dim sum on them. If we go for dim sum with Chinese friends they offer us everything under the sun from chicken feet to items I’d rather not know what they are, but when it’s just us they only offer us the dishes they think the westerners like and will eat. Darwin thoroughly enjoys the experience, he loves the bright gold and red painting, the vibrant atmosphere, he likes starring at the people and enjoys even more the attention they give him. They are very intrigued by his pale skin, dark hair and blue eyes. He tried various vegetarian dishes and he really enjoyed it! Sorry no picture today.

On another note, Darwin has entered a new phase of going through separation anxiety. Oh the joys of not being able to leave a room, go to the toilet (I’ve heard a story about a certain person having this trouble as a baby), he won’t even sit in a highchair as apparently that’s too far away from Mummy. I have to carry him whilst cooking dinner, getting ready, going to the toilet or else he shrieks from the top of his lungs. It is very sweet however it is getting a little annoying.

Today I went on a search to find a park in Manhattan with a swing, an easy task you might think for a city that has more than 1700 parks. Well not so easy in a city where everyone is suing everyone else. Apparently the parks don’t like to take the risk of putting in swings in case a child accidentally gets hit by one. However my quest was successful and I found a new park on a pier on the Hudson river. It was a lovely park with a sandpit, fountains, crazy golf, volleyball court, soccer pitch and…. swings!!! So here is a picture of Darwin thoroughly enjoy the swing today!

Not only is Darwin getting pretty speedy crawling around, trying to grab and eat everything he possibly can on his journey, he’s also getting pretty sturdy on his feet. He can even stand unsupported for a couple of seconds before he takes a tumble. He’s trying to cruise from one piece of furniture to the next by putting one foot in front of the other. Clever boy!

Here are some shots from our Saturday night, Al fresco dinner with Rosie. As you can see from the left, Darwin is very much his Father’s Son and below Darwin is trying to woo Rosie by kissing or should I say eating her hand!

Apologies for the tardiness in new blogs this week, Darwin and Mummy took a trip up to the rather fancy Hampton’s to visit Heidi and Holly. Just to give you a bit of background, Holly is Darwin’s girlfriend! She is three weeks younger than Darwin and her Mummy, Heidi, is from England. We live near each other and we’ve all been friends since the children were about three months old.

The kids hadn’t seen each other in over a month and were very excited to say the least to_ see one another. It’s the first time I’ve really seen Darwin wanting to socialize with another baby. They had lots of fun playing, Holly kept trying to push poor Darwin, there was lots of hair pulling and face touching, it was very sweet. Every time either of them went for a nap they’d be super excited to see the other one when they woke up!

We went swimming in the pool, we took them to the beach in Montauk, we went for a leisurely stroll in East Hampton and we had coffee (milk for the little ones), sitting outside the general store in rocking chairs. After all that excitement us Mummy’s more than earned our evening glass of wine!

They would however cry in sync, whenever one started crying so did the other, so our quiet break wasn’t all that quiet. But it was lovely to see our friends and to get out of the city, we did miss Daddy though and we’re excited to spend the weekend with him!

As promised, here’s a picture from last Friday, when Darwin first started crawling properly!

We are very excited (one of us more so than the others…Mummy), that we have just booked a holiday to Disney World, Florida for Darwin’s first birthday!!! We have a room overlooking the Magic Kingdom so we can watch the fireworks from our room! Mummy is counting down the days, 102 days to go!

We’ve already started planning all the rides Darwin can go on and what characters he’ll enjoy meeting. We’ll be there for the Halloween weekend, so we’ll see Mickey’s not so scary Halloween parade!